pointus

Asking the Israelis to freeze settlements while allowing the developers of Park51 to put their community center near ground zero is NOT hypocritical as cartoonist Steve Kelly makes it out to be, for the following simple reason:

The Park51 site is owned by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, whereas the Israelis are stealing Palestinian land for their illegal settlements.

Viking, you don't need to be an ocean-floor geologist to know that BP's safety record is abysmal (the worst of any major oil producer in the US), that they have successfully lobbied the US government to gut safety regulations, and that they didn't even invest in a $500,000 remote shutoff valve designed specifically to prevent just this type of catastrophe (incidentally, Norway & Brazil both require such valves). This company's pattern of lawless behavior in the US merits their corporate charter being yanked, and their executives being imprisoned for negligent homicide. BP does have ultimate responsibility.
Tyson Slocum, of Public Citizen:
"BP management would have been overseeing any of the contractors, whether they be Transocean or Halliburton, so even if one of the contractors, whether Halliburton or Transocean were found to be negligent, it is likely that BP will also be held responsible since they were in charge of managing the entire operation."
In fact, there was a pack of BP executives on board the platform when it exploded... what were they doing there? Celebrating BP's "safety record"!
Oh, then you say "let the professionals fix the problem." It's more than a problem, Viking. This disaster has the potential to turn the entire Gulf of Mexico into a dead zone, destroying the Southern coast's multi-billion dollar fishing & tourism industries.
In short: no company should be operating in an environment where they are unable to immediately fix such "problems." That's just common sense.